


The Keep of My Heart

by AMorePermanentDestination



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Mentions of DI Lestrade, Mentions of Mycroft - Freeform, One-Sided Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 15:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2626229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMorePermanentDestination/pseuds/AMorePermanentDestination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is not sure about his feelings for John. He is bad at feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Keep of My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone, this is my first story for this fandom, and basically my first fanfiction, period, so sorry if it is rubbish. Non-beta'd so all mistakes are my own.

Sherlock was confused. Perhaps that was not the best word for it, but he couldn't really think of another. He was Sherlock Holmes, England's only consulting detective and probably just about the smartest man alive. He was the king of chemistry, the master of deductions, and had a palace of information stored safely inside his own head. Such a man, he thought, should definitely not be confused. 

 

However, he was. No matter how hard he tried, he could not sort out his thoughts pertaining to John Watson. The ex-military doctor had appeared in his lab that one day, and ever since, they had developed a sort of… relationship that Sherlock had never had with anyone else before in his life. And yet… he wasn't exactly sure what the relationship was. 

 

He spent a long time trying to teach himself to divorce himself from his feelings. He had learned the hard way that, as his brother said, caring was not an advantage, and that sentiment always turned around to stab you in the back. Once you let it get the better of you, it would only hurt more in the long run. So many times had he been reminded of it, so he had hardened himself, built an impenetrable wall around his heart. After all, who needed a heart anyway? As long as he had his brain, he would thrive.  
But then what would explain the way that his pulse raced when his flatmate walked out of the shower wearing nothing but a robe? The way his eyes were drawn to the generous triangle of smooth chest formed by the robe's neck, or the way he felt himself smiling when he saw John with his blond hair sticking up in small spikes all over his head from the water, almost like a dog after it shook itself? Or even the way his gut flipped whenever the other man would lean in close to look at something Sherlock was holding? It was almost like the feeling one gets before vomiting, just… in a good way. No, nothing in his vast mental library could give him any insight to what that was about. 

 

When they'd first gone to Angelo's, just a few days after they'd settled in 221B Baker Street, John had asked if he had a girlfriend. Honestly, Sherlock hadn't really thought about it much before. He certainly didn't have a pressing need for one, and didn't even really know what they were for in the first place. As he understood it, a girlfriend was someone for whom you'd want, for some reason, to spend a lot of money on and do stupid things for. Girlfriends were for ordinary people, and he was far from an ordinary person. He simply did not have the time or the motivation to acquire one. So he'd answered politely but truthfully: 'Not really my area.' 

 

Besides, other than his brother, practically everyone else in the world was an idiot, so it would be extra difficult for either one of the Holmes brothers to be in a romantic relationship. Sherlock understood why Mycroft was so lonely; there simply was no one other than himself that the older man could relate to. And he was just a stuck up bastard anyway. 

 

Almost everybody that Sherlock met and worked with was an utter imbecile. Even those who were apparently good at their work, like that Detective Inspector Lestrade, were far stupider than he would have preferred. That man had to be the slowest and dullest person in the crime business ever. At times he couldn't even see the murderer when she was standing right next to him (yes, that did happen on one of the earlier cases). Sherlock had grown slightly more tolerant of the older man as the years passed and he 'helped with', as in solved, more cases than he could remember, but the DI remained useful for only one thing: making arrests. 

 

There was one more normal person who Sherlock could stand, somebody who he spent the majority of his time with everyday. John was ordinary, yes, but there was something so extraordinary about him too. Sherlock knew he was a difficult man, and that he was an arrogant, fussy, dramatic prick most of the time, but for some unexplained reason, John stayed. He stayed in at Baker Street even during the bad days, when Sherlock would sit and moan all day about a case, or when he played his violin long into the night, or when he didn't eat or sleep for a week. John would bring him back to his bed after he had been drugged, tucking the sheet firmly around him. 

 

Ever since his childhood, Sherlock knew that nobody ever stayed. But John did. And he enjoyed it. They both loved going out at night, running after a serial killer, but even better, John seemed to enjoy him. Sherlock would never forget the first time his new flatmate had said, 'That's brilliant!' after he showed off his ability to make complicated and accurate deductions. John's awe and admiration made Sherlock want to show off more and more, because it made him feel good. No one had ever said that to him so openly, and when John did it, it wasn't accompanied by the usual weird looks and whispers. 

 

Most of the time he showed off because he wanted to let people know exactly how good he was, or to get them to leave. Which they usually did. But with John, he only did it because of the happiness it elicited in the other man, and thus making him happy as well. 

 

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. Hat-man and Robin. Maybe Sherlock didn't know exactly the nature of his feelings toward his partner, but he was sure that their names were meant to go together and he knew that despite all his protection, one noble, brave soldier had rode through his defenses, swam through his moat and entered the keep of his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos would make my day, and just for the record, I have nothing against Lestrade. I rather like him, in fact.  
> Also, sorry for the confusing title, I was referring to a castle's keep.


End file.
